"Mine Own Library"*

This week I will be presenting a workshop, So You Wanna Be a Writer?, at the Kenilworth Library here in New Jersey. I am thrilled to be doing this for a number of reasons. First, I love libraries and librarians, and Kenilworth's librarian, Dale Spindel, is awesome. Dale was the second person (after my mom) to read the nowhere-near-ready-for-public-consumption first draft of my first novel a couple of years ago. She's brought wonderful programs to the library, including The Bard on the Boulevard, which stages Shakespeare plays in the summer. She's managed to snare amazing writers to do workshops and signings, including Jonathan Saffran Foer and Tom Perrotta (who attended my high school!). Dale is also a regular blogger at  Hey,There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room. Beyond that, however, I will always be grateful to the Kenilworth Library. I grew up in Kenilworth, and spent many a summer day browsing the stacks in that place, when it was maybe a third of the size of its current structure. (The white drain pipe marks the approximate end of the original building.) It was the treasures in my little library--Carolyn Keene and Booth Tarkington, Mary Stewart and Daphne DuMaurier, just to name a few--that first fired up my writer's imagination. Quite simply, my story started there, and I'm always happy to go back. P. S. Support your local public library. Fight to keep it open. And thank a librarian near you. photo courtesy of library website *Wm. Shakespeare: "Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library. . ." The Tempest

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